Rendering in Rhino 6 - a few questions

hey all! please answer these if you can:

  1. at the render tab, I only get Rhino Render as Current Render (Engine i assume…). It still uses Cycles when raytracing, right?
  2. can Rhino 6 do HDR Lighting?
  3. can it use CPU and GPU simultaneously?
  4. any idea why library materials like wood decks and other don’t have any bump maps of other relief information?
  5. any node editor for the materials?

thank you!

Maybe this will answer most: the Rhino Render does NOT use Cycles. The Cycle engine is only used in the display mode called “Raytraced”.

As @wim says, with the following additions, all true for Raytraced, which is Cycles:

  1. yes
  2. in theory, and probably in a service release - maybe in the range 4-7
  3. because not all of them have bump maps, but most of them have something assigned. The assigned ones are probably not the best as they often are the same as the diffuse map.
  4. through grasshopper, but usage is still rather experimental and rough. The plug-in is called GhShaderNodes
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  1. so in future, RHINO can “renderize” using CPU and GPU, together to speed up the process?

In the future yes.

The future for “renderizing” in Raytraced display mode will likely be closer than for Rhino Render.

thanks for the answers!
about hdr lighting:
a) can you tell me how i can upload an hdri?
b) is there a way to make Rhino update the Backdrop environment automatically when changing the lighting environment? (it’s weird having to to this manually)
c) i see that even if i choose for lighting a rhino environment that shows hard shadows in the picture (like “V&A Courtyard”), I don’t get sharp shadows in my model

  • When you create a new environment you can select to add an image texture. Choose one of EXR or HDR.
  • Uncheck the custom skylight, so that the backdrop environment is used. You can then use 360° environment to check both backdrop and skylight at the same time. Unchecking custom reflection environment will have that also use the same environment
  • That is because the entire HDRi is used for lighting. The lighting cannot be the same as a primitive light like the sun or point light
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Thanks, Nathan, for answering!
Regarding the last point, i would have to disagree. If I use in Blender a HDRi that has sharp shadows, I do get sharp shadows in the model as well (If “multiple importance” is checked, whatever that may do), because the sun is a lot brighter than the rest, so you get the equivalent of both a skylight and a sun lamp.

I tried using a hdri from HDRI HAVEN that I used in Blender for hard shadows, but i still get the fuzzy ones in Rhino.
Also, Rhino shows preview for some hdr images and for others it doesn’t.

Also, could someone explain the difference between Background color and Background image when editing an environment?

Right, MIS in environment is probably not using an ideal map setting, and this isn’t exposed in Rhino UI either. I’ll keep this on my list to revisit and see if I can improve this - but the first concern is to ensure we don’t introduce too much changes that cause more fireflies.

Note that not all HDRis from HDRi Haven load well in Rhino - I already logged a bug for this in our YouTrack system last year.

Background color is used when Background image isn’t set.

regarding Background color and background image, i see that one can introduce an image in the color input as well, that’s the source of the confusion